"You wake up... you grab the morning paper... and although it seems like any ordinary day... it isn't. For one extraordinary reason: One band; two oil barrels; three chords; four dreams, five lies, six ties, seven deadly sins, and eight ways to stay alive...! They know who you are... they know where you live... they're the Kaizers Orchestra!"

— Concert introduction, circa 2008

Kaizers Orchestra is a Crazy Awesome Norwegian alternative rock band who have attained significant international popularity owing to their unique and energetic live act, notably featuring oil barrels and crowbars being used as instruments of percussion, a mysterious gas-masked man playing an antique pump organ, and a charismatic Large Ham lead vocalist. And what's more, they insist on singing in their native Norwegian dialect, making their international renown all the more impressive.

Their extensive catalog of quirky Genre Roulette songs prevalently features cryptic, surrealistic "storytelling" lyrics in the vein of Tom Waits, that are often part of an interconnected, cross-album Myth Arc. Their lyrical subject matter includes World War II, The Mafia, parapsychology, (and its often resultant) insanity, and cocktail drinks. Most songs are composed by frontman and multi-instrumentalist Janove Ottesen, with a lesser share of compositions credited (or co-credited to) to second guitarist Geir Zahl.

After over a decade of playing together as a group (though many of the members go further back than even that), having reached the pinnacle of success in Norway eight times over, as well as achieving unforeseen international success that goes far beyond the European continent, they held their final concert in the fall of 2013. It has been specifically cited that this is not a "break-up", but whether or not the band will ever get together again is not known at this point, though a rest period of a good number of years is to be expected regardless of the outcome.

Alternative Rock: Though they seem to dislike being labeled as such, adhering to the old adage "alternative to what?".

Anachronic Order: Hooboy. Always present, but the Violeta trilogy really takes it Up to 11. Songs set early in the chronology are as likely to be found on the first album as they are the second or third.

Arc Words: If you don't know about the mafia-based backstory (and sometimes, even if you do), just about any proper noun can become one.

Ascended Fanboy: Well, they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery... it sure was enough to win Tom Waits over, who promptly placed Ompa til du dør on his list of "music you should hear." In the man's own words:

Go to most Kaizers concerts (at least domestically) and you figure out pretty quickly that the band could probably do without their vocalist half of the time. The band tends to leave most refrains and call-and-response parts to the audience, at least on songs that are relatively well-known: Some songs will have the audience singing along on the entire song, prompted or no.

The all-time greatest occurrence of this was at their special anniversary concert in Oslo Spektrum in 2011. The crowd kept singing the chorus of "Die Polizei", the very last song of the set, for damn near ten minutes after the band walked off the stage.

A Wild Rapper Appears!: "En for orgelet, en for meg", of which there are no less than four variations, each with the bridge performed by a different internationally known rap artist (though "rap artist" may not be the best descriptor for the little girl performing on the album version).

Big, Screwed-Up Family: The relatives of one Violeta. And in another sense of the word, the mafia family of Ompa til du dør/Evig pint.

Blacksheep Hit: They refrained from including "Prosessen", an up-tempo, relatively straight pop song, from their first album specifically to avoid this. Ironically, when it was eventually released as a single from Våre demoner, it was not much of a hit, even by the band's standards.

The Ompa til du dør demo, for some reason, has Janove constantly belting out lyrics in a pained, desperate fashion that makes him seem positively restrained on the album. Chalk it up to Early Installment Weirdness, I guess?

"Dieter Meyers Inst." also gradually becomes this, as Janove's voice becomes more and more unhinged as the song goes on.

The Cast Show Off: Janove is a multi-instrumentalist (though it's rarely put to use during concerts), was a promising soccer player (which he isn't afraid to show off if challenged), and he can TAP DANCE.

Cloud Cuckoolander: Helge's character is a somewhat Omen-ous example of this, as described in this page's Funny tab. Øyvind too shows signs of this in both live DVD documentaries (especially Veien til Spektrum, in which he imitates the sound of a newly opened bottle of wine being poured, which he does to convince himself it is actually a fresh bottle), but the extent to which he plays it up for entertainment is indecisive at best.

Concept Video: Many of their music videos qualify, however, "Hjerteknuser" might be the one most true to the trope definition, as it depicts characters and events detailed in the lyrical universe of Violeta Violeta, rather than abstract renditions of characters played by the band themselves.

Continuity Nod: "D-dagen" makes a lyrical reference to the character of Dominique, four years after the release of Ompa til du dør.

Control Freak: Janove's tendencies towards this are well documented in the Kontroll på kontinentet autobiography and a slew of interviews, but appears to have been assuaged to some degree in recent years.

Not really their bag, but exceptions do exist. They recorded a cover of Norwegian rocker Joachim "Jokke" Nielsen's "Action" for a tribute album (but ultimately released on a bonus disc for Maestro); a version of "Røvervise" from the Norwegian play Folk og røvere i Kardemomme by for a tribute album to the song's composer, Thorbjørn Egner; and a version of "Whiskey Rabbi" as a favor to long-time support act Geoff Berner.

Perhaps inevitably, they had to cover the man without whom they might very well not have existed: they performed "Goin' Out West" at a Norwegian all-star celebration show for the sixtieth birthday of reciprocal fan Tom Waits.

Darker and Edgier: Evig pint (Norwegian for Eternally Tormented) was a deliberate attempt to avoid the accusations that they were purely a gimmicky-party band. So with Evig pint the guitar was pushed into the foreground, less attention was put to the weird percussion and the lyrics got way darker. The funny thing though, is that Ompa was a pretty dark album too. Most of the critics seem to forget that.

Deadpan Snarker: Invoked constantly when representatives of the group reply to fan mail. Since said feature was removed from their website some time ago, this has naturally worked its way into their Facebook messages.

Downer Ending: In case the song title itself wasn't enough to clue you in, "Drøm hardt (Requiem part I)" is about a man's last night before his execution.

Epic Rocking: "Kontroll på kontinentet" and a slight handful of other songs become this when performed live.

Very early on in their career, they would often turn some live songs into near-ten minute jam sessions, but these tendencies disappeared rather quickly. They do not consider themselves a good "jam" band.

Seven of the ten songs on Violeta Violeta Volume III are over six minutes long, necessitating a double album for the vinyl release.

Everything Is an Instrument: Oil barrels and crowbars, and for a time, trash can lids. Oh, and there's the inclusion of a distinctive red trash can in Rune's drum kit. Which is not to to mention the wide variety of quirky implements used for studio cuts.

Violeta Violeta Volume III serves as this for both their recorded legacy (for now), and the trilogy as a whole.

A 2006 tour named the "Grand Finale Tour" served as the final tour before their first big sabbatical; namely, a (almost) complete break from playing live until February of 2008.

Their final concert for the foreseeable future was held on September 14, 2013. The final show of a two-week stay at a hockey arena near Janove and Geir's hometown, it was the longest set and longest overall concert they ever held.

Iconic Item: The gas mask. How it came to be in the band's possession (or is it the the other way around?), as explained by Helge:

"The mask... it came to me... and I just took it. And... we were friends."

Incredibly Lame Pun: Read a Norwegian newspaper. Any Norwegian newspaper. You will get a kipper if an article on the band has anything but something along the lines of "the Kaizer's new clothes", or "control over the [arbitrary performance venue]."

Insistent Terminology: Their final concert (for now) is just that... their final concert (for now). They'll be back. Just you wait 'n see.

Limited Special Collector's Ultimate Edition: ...Well, at least they tried. This is what the special embossed-cover version of Violeta Violeta Volume I was intended to be. Originally, the point was for everyone who attended a show during their 2010 Studio Tour to get one in exchange for sending a special mail-in card to a certain address. Turns out they had some to spare after sending them, and sold these at the merch stand at concerts.

To a lesser extent, the Våre demoner album. It was printed in a one-run edition, and was to be retracted from stores after the passing of one week. Similar to the above example, it wasn't, and is still sold at merch stands in 2012 (though they have claimed this will truly be the last time they will be available for sale).

List Song: A bridge in "Din kjole lukter bensin, mor" lists, in bullet points, the process of Violeta and Beatrice's hypothetical reconciliation. What's more, the final stanza incorporates both last points by way of a pun.

Lost Love Montage: "Hjerteknuser" from Violeta Violeta Volume I and "Fanden hakk i hel" from Våre demoner both have elements of this.

Loudness War: Their CD album mixes are often accused of this, which makes the scarcity of vinyl copies all the worse...

Motor Mouth: "Bak et halleluja" might as well be marketed as a professional elocution lesson at times. Also, when performing the band introductions during live performances of "Kontroll på kontinentet", Janove is prone to segue into this.

Multiple Endings: Maskineri comes in three varieties: the CD version, which closes with "Ond sirkel"; the digital version, which adds "Du og meg Lou, og din fru" after the former; and the vinyl version, which moves "Ond sirkel" to the first side and makes "Romantisk salme i F-dur" (available only on this format) the album closer.

Non-Appearing Title: "Rullett", "Katastrofen", "Hevnervals", "Moment", "Kaizers 115. drøm", "Romantisk salme i F-dur", and "Christiania". The latter was given an outro refrain of "Bevar Christiania" ("Preserve Christiania") during live performances, however; fittingly, one such performance was recorded for the Viva La Vega DVD recorded in Copenhagen, Denmark.note For those not in the know, "Freetown Christiania" is a self-proclaimed autonomous neighborhood of Copenhagen.

And aside from these, there are a bunch of songs whose titles aren't sung in Exact Words.

The Quiet One / The Stoic: Helge, wearer of the iconic Gas Mask, has one hell of a poker face even without the mask on. And when he speaks, you listen.

Rearrange the Song: Often invoked with songs that are performed live long before they are ever released; most radically, "Di grind" was originally presented as a slower number, with a prominent guitar riff rather than a piano part acting as the primary "hook".

Record Producer: Janove has co-produced all of their studio albums. His most common collaborator has been Jørgen "Duperman" Træen.

Revenge: An all-too-common theme throughout their work; the most famous example is the song "Ompa til du dør", which tells of a man who takes revenge on his wife's murderer by forcing him to "dance ompa" until he dies from exhaustion. A Less subtle example is "Hevnervals", whose title literally means "avenger's waltz".

Stage Names: All the members have stage names: Janove is "The Jackal", Geir is "Hellraizer", Terje is "Killmaster", Rune is "Mink", Øyvind is "Thunder", and Helge is "Omen". Past member Jon Sjøen was interchangeably referred to as "Lion King" and "Rasmus", among others. Additionally, Janove was initially called "Rat". The origin of these names are uncertain, however, the band have remarked that Rune is so named due to his excessive amount of body hair.

Stealth Pun: Violeta Violeta is often typeset (on the official site, even) with a seemingly anachronistic comma between two two instances of "Violeta." It's well-known that Violeta's parents "named her twice" on account of her beauty. But, come Volume III, and the reveal of Violeta's stillborn twin...

Step Up to the Microphone: Terje was given a half a verse of "D-Dagen", which he performs in the raucous vocal style he uses when acting as lead singer for Skambankt, his other band.

In a hilarious instance, all the band members switched instruments for a performance of "Bøn fra helvete"; Helge performed lead vocals. In recent times, he has also performed the spoken word verses of "Svarte katter & flosshatter" (by yelling into a megaphone, no less) during live performances.

A borderline case is Geir. He used to perform lead vocals on a number of songs early on in their career, but this has since been phased out somewhat. Geir performing lead vocals, both live and on record, has become a rare occurrence over time; when he does so, however, at least the trope is executed in the most literal manner possible. He has returned to lead vocal duties on two songs on Violeta Violeta Volume II, however.

Surreal Music Video: "Knekker deg til sist". Let's see here, we have inexplicable clones of the band members whose facial expressions range from "happy on crack" to a complete lack of emotion, Janove (or is it a clone?) pretending to be a dead body in order to check out a woman's cleavage, and Helge channeling Samara Morgan. Yep.

Studio Chatter: Snippets of dialogue in studio recordings have been heard occasionally, the most famous example being "Bris", which ends with a fit of laughter from the band due to Helge ending his organ part in the completely wrong key. Another is "Under månen", a bonus track from the Våre demoner album: at the end of the song, Janove says to the others that they need to "work on the solo", as his improvisational instrumental break eventually ended up out of key and out of sync with the others.

The Beatles: One consistently name-dropped source of inspiration. They may even be more of an influence than previously thought, as the distinctive oil barrel section in "Bastard" was directly inspired by Ringo Starr's drumming on "Drive My Car".

The Devil: Alluded to in numerous songs, but finally makes an appearance in the flesh in "Begravelsespolka".

Unplugged Version: Happens every once in a blue moon whenever only a few of the members embark on a promotional tour. Most notably, to promote Violeta Violeta Volume I, Janove performed songs, both new and old, on the piano, with only Øyvind on bass as his accompaniment; this duo came to be known as "The Jackal & Thunder Combo".

Visual Gag: Their final concert (for now) was punctuated by the appearance of a large broad singing opera music... "it ain't over 'til the fat lady sings."

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